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Reviews & Commentary by Adam Groves
GIRLS ON THE ROAD
A 1972 no-budgeter that is, first and foremost, very much of its time
THE BEEKEEPER
A Jason Statham movie with most everything that portends, meaning THE BEEKEEPER (2024) won’t ever be mistaken for CITIZEN KANE
A CHINESE GHOST STORY (1987)
An enormously iconic Hong Kong fantasy, although I’ve never been all that impressed by it.
THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD
A film that in most particulars would appear to qualify for Profoundly Weird status, but which in the filmography of its director, Canada’s Guy Maddin, doesn’t seem too strange at all
BUFFET FROID
A very bizarre 1979 comedy by France’s Bertrand Blier that functions as a film noir parody, a cautionary essay on contemporary dehumanization and an unfiltered blast of surreal invention
THE STRANGERS
A vastly overpraised novel, but one that imparts a powerful sense of near-otherworldly strangeness
THE LAST CHILDREN
This uber-bleak depiction of a post-nuclear Germany was published, unbelievably enough, as a children’s book
THE BARN OF FEAR
An underground comix anthology about homicidal animals. At least one of its parts is strong.
UGLY MUG 7
The latest installment of the UK based House of Harley’s UGLY MUG series of underground comix art
THE FUNGUS
London is destroyed yet again in this 1980s example of “Nasties” horror writing
I AM NOT ASHAMED
This shouldn’t be taken as a definitive biographical resource, but as an unabashedly sensationalistic Old Hollywood expose it’s pretty damn compelling
DANGEROUS VISIONS AND NEW WORLDS: RADICAL SCIENCE FICTION, 1950-1985
If you’re a fan of literary science fiction this book is absolutely essential reading
NIGHTMARE OF ECSTASY: THE LIFE AND ART OF EDWARD D. WOOD JR.
An oral history made up entirely of quotes from people who knew Mr. Wood
THE TRAVELING YEARS: A MEMOIR OF PUPPETS, PORNO AND PENURY
A household name Leo Eaton may not be, but he’s led an interesting life without question
CONFESSIONS OF A PUPPETMASTER
A memoir that’s more outrageous and exciting than most of Charles Band’s movies
Albert Pyun: 1953-2022
There was simply no one else like the Hawaiian-bred Albert Pyun, one of the most irrepressible directors working in any genre
Reconsidering Nineties Flops
There’s something about the movie flops of the 1990s
Halloween Movies: My Top 20
My 20 favorite Halloween movies (no, NIGHT OF THE DEMONS and HOCUS POCUS aren’t on it)
EYES WITHOUT A FACE vs. THE HORROR CHAMBER OF DR. FAUSTUS
In which I make the heretical confession that I prefer the Americanized recut of EYES WITHOUT A FACE to the original version
On Michael Haneke and Emotional Glaciation
A thematic trilogy that marked the emergence of a unique and vital auteur, and exerted a rather sizeable impact on European cinema as a whole